No New York Yankees player had more of a 2025 season to forget than Anthony Volpe.
Despite what Yankees manager Aaron Boone and general manager Brian Cashman said all season about Volpe’s defense and clutch postseason performance in 2024, the Yankees’ actions spoke louder than words when Volpe was lifted for a pinch hitter in the ninth inning of their 5-2 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in Game 4 of the ALDS.
The Yankees’ season ended with a 3-1 series defeat to the Blue Jays, with whom they finished with the same 94 wins. Yet, Toronto went 11-6 against the Yankees this year, and Volpe went 1 for 15 with 11 strikeouts in the four-game series.
The ALDS Continued An Awful Trend For Anthony Volpe At The Plate
Volpe came through for the Yankees against the rival Boston Red Sox during the AL Wild Card Series, and he did double and score their only run in their 10-1 loss to the Jays in Game 1.
But from then on, Volpe was an automatic out, with Blue Jays feeding him a steady diet of high fastballs. His series OPS was just .200, his wRC+ was minus-57 in the ALDS, by far the worst on the team, and he finished the postseason with a minus-10.9 offensive fWAR.
The small sample magnified Volpe’s struggles, the same way his grand slam in Game 4 of the 2024 World Series buoyed his numbers from last fall. Maybe he was affected by the labrum tear in his shoulder — that he should definitely have cleaned up — or simply a lost, outlier-type season that got to him mentally.
But Volpe’s struggles were obvious all year, and Boone finally did something to change it by putting Dominguez up for Volpe in the ninth inning against closer Jeff Hoffman. Dominguez launched a double and scored a run on Aaron Judge’s two-out double — Dominguez equaled Volpe’s total for hits and runs scored in just a fraction of plate appearances.
Anthony Volpe May Be Playing Himself Out Of New York
It’s hard to speculate what the Yankees’ off-season plans will be, and even harder to predict in the tightlipped Brian Cashman era. Gold Glove-winning shortstops, who are not even arbitration eligible, rarely get traded — particularly ones who make the leap from Double-A to the majors and have success in the postseason.
But Volpe, who grew up a Yankees fan in Northern New Jersey, understands the pressure and surely must know his entire 2025 season was a colossal regression — especially into October.
The Yankees acquired Jose Caballero from the Tampa Bay Rays at the trade deadline, and he is a natural shortstop. Plus, their top prospect, George Lombard Jr., is a 20-year-old shortstop who spent the bulk of his season in Double-A — Lombard’s estimated MLB debut will come in 2027 according to MLB Pipeline.
So keep a close eye on what the Yankees decided to do with Volpe this off-season, especially given their penchant for trades over free-agent signings — and the potentially glaring outfield hole they have if free agents Trent Grisham and/or Cody Bellinger leave.
His season from hell may have sapped some of Volpe’s value, but he wouldn’t be the first highly touted Yankees prospect to start fast then fizzle and quietly be shipped out.
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